LAPD Turns to TV Show to Help Catch Officer’s Killer

“I just want to see the gun up, as high up as possible,” television director Gary Ross instructed actor Richard Henry.

Henry, who was portraying the suspected killer of a police officer, was aiming an automatic rifle at a pursuing unmarked police car. The scene is for a reenactment of the killing of Los Angeles Police Officer Daniel Pratt for the Fox Television Network show, “America’s Most Wanted.”

Work on the reenactment began Wednesday after Los Angeles Police officials contacted the network, and producers are scrambling to broadcast it at 8 p.m. Sunday on KTTV Channel 11, said Jack Breslin, a spokesman for the show.

“Los Angeles police felt that there was some urgency, that there was a possibility that the suspects could be fleeing the country,” Breslin said. “Police felt we could help if we could get out some national publicity, and we had some time on Sunday’s show.”

Pratt, 30, was working undercover Sept. 3 when he and his partner, Veronica DaLao, heard gunfire. The officers chased a car they saw leaving the scene of a drive-by shooting in the Hyde Park area of Los Angeles near Inglewood.

Police said the car turned and bore down on Pratt and DaLao in a service station at the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Florence Avenue. During an exchange of gunfire, Pratt was shot in the face. DaLao was not injured.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the police officer’s union, has offered a $15,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of Kirkton Phenor Moore, 27, a gang member suspected of shooting Pratt, and his alleged accomplice, Raylene Brooks, 17, suspected of driving the getaway car.

$25,000 Reward

And on Friday, the City Council approved a $25,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for the slaying.

Dozens of neighborhood residents gathered near a fast-food restaurant at the corner of Florence and 8th Avenue Thursday night, about four blocks from the fatal shooting scene, to watch the television crew film a segment of the chase.

“I heard the shooting, but I didn’t think anything of it,” machinist Jesse Gutierrez said as he watched the filming and remembered the night Pratt was killed. “You hear shooting all the time around here.”

Only when he walked a block to Florence and found it blocked by police cars did he learn that an officer had been killed, he said.

Police believe that potential witnesses who could lead them to Brooks and Moore have been afraid to come forward.

“They know what he did to a policeman,” said Detective Richard Crotsley, who is investigating Pratt’s murder. “They feel he wouldn’t hesitate to do it to them.”

Crotsley, who served as technical adviser to the television crew, said the $15,000 has not generated enough information, and investigators hope that the television show’s national audience will lead to the pair’s arrest.

“Hopefully, they’ll be in custody next week,” the detective said.

When the show is broadcast, viewers will be able to call hot lines in Washington and Los Angeles with information on the suspects. Of the 93 suspects profiled on the show, 45 have been arrested--25 as a direct result of viewer tips, Breslin said.